Master of Science in Management of Technology

This course enables the students to keep abreast of the fast-developing and multi-disciplinary field of innovation.  It provides the students with the necessary skills and knowledge to explore and manage creativity, research and development, and product development.  The course focuses on the managerial skills and professional expertise needed to take a product or service from concept to market quickly and successfully.  It covers basic concepts and types, sources of innovation, evaluation, evolution, process of innovation, product development and its success and failure, market development and pricing policies, strategic alliances, Intellectual Property Rights, and Innovation Capability Audit.

Students who opt for MSc degrees in MOT are expected to prepare their master’s thesis under the supervision of the graduate student’s advisory committee and present and defend their thesis in front of the assigned examining committee. Students are encouraged to select subjects for the Thesis from their work environment. Students who opt for professional masters are exempted. However, these students are required to do a project under supervision.

Students who opt for MSc degrees in MOT are asked to publish their research work in a Scopus journal or conference.  Students who opt for professional masters are exempted.

The thesis document will be evaluated by the examining committee considering the value and quality of the published research paper.

The project shall provide evidence that the candidate has acquired, to a satisfactory degree, the ability: to master theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of Technology Management, to search for references, review literatures, comprehend the subjects, use modern scientific and technological tools to formulate ideas, conduct research, study, analyze, and present the research results in the form of a written report and a presentation. Students are expected to prepare their Research Project under the supervision of one or more supervisors assigned by the Dean of Graduate studies. An examining committee is to be assigned by the Dean of the Graduate Studies.

In this course, students follow an in-depth directed study in a given topic or field of their choice under the close supervision of a faculty member.  A student may repeat the course for credit provided that the topic or field of choice is different.  Repeating the course for credit requires the approval of the program director.

This course is tailored to introduce students to the latest advances in fields that are related to their specialization in the management of technology, and/or to focus on a specific area of particular interest to the discipline.  Course contents may vary from term to term to address emerging subjects.

This course is intended to provide the student with understanding of industrial systems paradigms, their objectives, evolution and enabling technologies. The course will cover also automation in advanced systems and computer integrated manufacturing. Modeling and control of automatic production systems will be discussed as well as the new sustainable and green systems with new energy and materials enablers will be explored. Moreover, the business plan integration with manufacturing and industrial systems will be investigated.

This course provides students with the knowledge to understand trends in new and emerging information and communication technologies, assess their impact and potential benefits, and identify strategies for managing the introduction of these technologies in today’s organizations. This course covers advances in data management, data communications, electronic commerce, multimedia, web technologies, and other computer/communications technologies, all examined from business applications and management perspectives.

This course introduces the concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), a managerial approach to changing the culture of a company where all processes are geared towards exceeding customer expectations and creating a challenging environment for employees.  TQM concentrates on continuous improvement of all “processes” within the organization from capturing end-user customer requirements, to designing the products that meet the needs, selecting “capable” suppliers for raw materials and components, developing suppliers, and manufacturing, to safe delivery.  The course will cover the basic definition of quality, and the philosophies of leading gurus of quality such as Deming, Juran, Crosby, Ishikawa, and Taguchi.  Major tools of TQM will be addressed.

In the first part of this course, students will be exposed to the problems associated with industrial development and sustainability, as well as environmental hazards and their impact on health and safety, environmental management programs, ISO 14000 and international standards. The second part of the course includes an introduction to morality and ethics as defined and distinguished. Applied philosophy is then introduced, to give the student a foundation upon which to analyze the ethical dimensions of common business questions. The relationships between the ethics and the spirit of the law in specific business topics are examined, and their legal and ethical aspects are then addressed.

This course aims to familiarize the student with management science tools for business systems analysis and improvement. The coverage includes linear and integer programming models, project management, transportation algorithms, simulation, queuing theory, and decision trees and analysis. Some widely used software will be illustrated through examples and case studies derived from business applications.

Introductory course to systems engineering for graduate students that offers traditional design processes to accommodate specific requirements and capabilities, and to match the constantly changing requirements and the introduction of new technologies in a continuing and evolutionary basis.. The content of the course follows typical system design life cycle. It correlates the different disciplines required to deploy and sustain a system for missions in information technology, information processing and electronics Nile University – M.Sc. Program in MOT Mai 2012 Page 21 domains. Topics include system architecture, hardware and software components, requirement allocation, performance budgeting and integration and test. It correlates the different activities required to deploy and sustain a system as well as to extend its life cycle.

While sound macroeconomic policies, stable legal and political institutions, as well as improving social conditions, create the potential for competitiveness, wealth is actually created at the microeconomic level. This course explores the determinants of competitiveness and successful economic development viewed from a bottom-up, microeconomic perspective. It covers the patterns of supply and demand and the determination of output and prices. This includes production possibility frontier, elasticity of supply and demand, labor markets and minimum wage, indifference curves, costs, scale and timing, factors of production and types of market competition.

This course introduces the interdisciplinary aspects of the Management of Technology. It includes Engineering, science, and management principles contributing to developing a successful framework for managing technological resources within a country or an organization. Technology is addressed as the engine of wealth creation, technology life cycles, technological innovation, competitiveness, strategizing, technology forecasting and planning, and socio-economic changes. It emphasizes the close interaction between science, technology, business, engineering, industry, and management.

Technology and competitiveness at the macro-level of nations and the micro-level of corporations and organizations, and the formulation of strategies and the integration of technology and business strategies. The basic concepts in strategic thinking are covered such as Strategic Business Thinking, Technology in Strategic Thinking, and Conditional Theory in social science.  Relations between competition and strategy, knowledge assets, and diversification strategy, among other issues, are discussed in this course.  Case studies of corporate successes and failures, for groups and individual projects are assigned.

The theory and practice of entrepreneurship and new venture creation. Conversion of technological know-how and engineering theories into business enterprises, connecting technology with markets, the role and characteristics of entrepreneurs, preparing a business plan, securing sources of capital, and understanding the complexities of selecting a management team. Students will be developing their ventures and will be critiqued by a panel of venture capitalists and members of the business community.

In the first part of this course, the topics covered are Methods and Tools of technological foresight and forecasting.  This includes monitoring scenarios, Delphi techniques, expert opinion, trend analysis, modeling, and scenario construction.  The second part includes a discussion of new and emerging technologies and the process by which these technologies were developed and are evolving. The impact of these technologies on the competitiveness of the industry and economic growth with national and international implications are identified.

This course provides the students with the basic concept and nature of research and gives them a clear understanding of research philosophies and approaches. It provides methodologies for formulating the research problems, constructing hypotheses, conceptualizing the research design, checking the validity and reliability of the research instrument and collecting data for analyses. Statistical tools are discussed these include: probability theory, random variables and their distributions, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, statistical modeling and linear and non-linear regression.

The course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and techniques of financial accounting with specific emphasis on financial reporting, including analysis and usage of financial accounting information. The course is divided into three parts. The first part of the course focuses on generating the basic financial statements and their articulation. In the second part of the course more specialized accounting issues are examined. The third part of the course addresses the importance of the cash flows statement and the use of financial analysis techniques to analyze and interpret financial statements.

This course focuses on managerial skills and effective leadership from a practical perspective. It covers key processes in organizations that include organizational issues; global perspectives; managerial functions and decision making; culture, values and beliefs; leadership potential; leadership traits and competencies; leadership ethics; effective leadership and effective management of the workforce. It also includes the selection process, compensation, performance, career development, and evaluation of human resources. It covers management practices, human resource’s utilizations, and the best practices that should be applied regardless of their fields of activities.

This course exposes students to the fundamental and emerging concepts of marketing, the analytical tools and the “language” of marketing in both industrial and service organizations are used. Topics include the 5 Cs of marketing analysis (Company, Customers, Competition, Collaborators, and Context), the STP marketing process (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning), and the 4 Ps marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion).

The Financial Management course encompasses two different aspects of finance. The first part deals with issues related to the operational needs of funds, and analyzes the characteristics of different investments in assets, qualities and the interpretations of each of them, risks and costs, as well as investment policies in currency congruent with the product, the market and the environment. In the second part, the course examines the broad topic of investment analysis, using a systematic application of the techniques of the current value and internal rate of return, the appropriate criteria for determining the proper cash flows appropriate for each project and their variability in terms of the type of project in question.

The first part of this course covers; Techniques and tools of project management, the use of network flow techniques including critical path management (PM/CPM), planning systems concepts, time management, conflicts, cost and resource control, tradeoffs, and sensitivity analyses, PERT/Cost, and project crashing. Moreover, to have effective project management, knowledge management should be tackled. In the second part of this course, students will be exposed to critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival, and competence in the face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change. The hierarchy of data, information, knowledge, and technology. The synergy of people, processes, and technology. The focus is on the knowledge management processes and assessment. Identifying success and failure factors. Organizational processes that seek a synergistic combination of data and information processing capacities and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings.

This course aims at enhancing academic writing skills pertinent to proposal and dissertation or project writing. The course builds on the Research Methods & Advanced Statistics course offered. The course moves through the different sections of writing a proposal/dissertation with a special focus on the language used for scientific and academic contexts. Using experiential learning as a main methodology, the course assessments will be related to students’ proposals that will be submitted to the MOT, thus the application will be directly related to their research.

The focus is on selected new technologies or continuing development of existing technologies.  Discussing the road map of their developments, their importance, and their roles in the different aspects of life such as in industry, business, economy, education, medicine, etc.  Irrespective of the fact that the technologies and/or their practical applications may still be largely unrealized, they are figuratively emerging into prominence from a background of nonexistence or obscurity, however, they may have great potential shortly.

To explore the policy implications of the move to a knowledge-based economy. These have several dimensions, including basic science policy, and technology policies aimed at invention and innovation, diffusion policies, and different policies related to the adoption of new technologies.  It also discusses the technology policy aspects of industrial and regional policies, human capital, human resources, and mobility, including all aspects of education and training.

Statistical tools are discussed which include probability theory, random variables, and their distributions, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, statistical modeling, linear and non-linear regression, variability and shape measures, sampling and sampling distributions, analysis of variance (ANOVA), survey analysis, writing good surveys, Cronbach's alpha, etc. Hypotheses testing, Chi-square, and other non-parametric tests are also discussed.

This course provides the students with the basic concept and nature of research and gives them a clear understanding of research philosophies and approaches.  It provides methodologies for formulating the research problems, constructing hypotheses, conceptualizing the research design, checking the validity and reliability of the research instrument, and collecting data for rigorous analyses. Methods to avoid Plagiarism are proposed. Scientific and Critical Thinking are discussed through the three universal principles, viz: the use of empirical evidence, the practice of logical reasoning, and possessing a skeptical attitude.  Templates and styles of writing the research work documents are also presented.   The course introduces common simple statistical methods.

This course exposes students to the fundamental and emerging concepts of marketing, the analytical tools, and the “language” of marketing in both industrial and service organizations. Topics include the 5 Cs of marketing analysis (Company, Customers, Competition, Collaborators, and Context), the STP marketing process (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning), and the 4 Ps marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). In the second part of the course, the students will be versed in the aims of commercialization, its types, stages, strategies, and challenges.